Afiendum Dente
by ChoNeun
Summary: Spoilers. Dave and Rose won't go down without a fight.


TG: do u know how misrable it is for your bff to doubt you

TG: when you tell her your mom is dead

TT: I guess.

TT: It just registers for me as a reaction which isn't completely unreasonable from her perspective.

TT: She is inundated with media coverage of those whom we've claimed as our parental figures.

TT: That they are not presently alive nor ever played that role for us as she understands it is just an extension of a much more elaborate and far reaching explanation, which is much harder for anyone to digest in its entirety.

TT: Well, anyone who isn't Jake, I mean.

TT: Still say you should cut her some slack.

TG: i know

The question comes up "How did they die anyway?". You vaguely remember your guardian, who resembles the very man you've picked to "parent" you in his steed, but he was only around for a short time. A _very_ short time. Up until lately, actually, you never really thought about who he was or what he meant to you. He did enough, and he left you right as you were starting to make some money of your own from your online ventures. How convenient. Roxy was taking it harder than you though. You could understand that, to some extent.

Your conversation with her rattles on, but you catch yourself turning and looking outside. You just can't help but wonder...

Dave holds Caledscratch in both of his hands, glaring up at the sky. Rose stands beside him, her fuchsia scarf blowing in the wind.

"I'm getting too old for this," Dave mutters to himself.

Rose's lips tug up in a small smile. "So is that sword of yours."

"What're you talking about; this shit's as good as new."

"It's seen better days, much like you have."

"Fuck off, Lalonde."

Her smile stays put, and Dave glances over to her, returning her shrew's smile with a smirk. They look up to the sky once again. A group of clouds start to blacken above them. Dave looks down towards the ground and extends his hand downward. His eyes flash a brighter red, and he returns his gaze to the sky again.

"We've got an hour before I feel the strain," he says to her.

"Worried we won't be finished in time."

"Just let me worry about Time. If we want to do this, we need to be quick about it before whatever that thing is seen by the people."

"How slow is time moving for them?"

He side glances to the female. "Enough."

With a shriek, something jerks its head side to side and pushes through the sky. Rose pulls out her Thorns of Oglogoth from the inside of her overcoat. Dave sees this in the corner of his eyes and raises a brow. He doesn't comment. The figure from above makes darkness spill over the clouds like overflowing pool water. The sky becomes a sickening oil spill, and the creature starts to claw at the two standing a top of a building.

"Best plan?" Dave asks as cracked talons move closer and closer towards their position.

"There is no best plan."

"What?"

He looks over to her with furrowed brows. The beast finally reaches them and smacks its hand into the roof. The two humans jump backwards out of the way and land on another rooftop. The creature, which Dave notices has a bird like face, turns its head towards them, opens its beak and lets out a horrific squawk. The Strider grits his teeth.

"We'll fight him the best we can," Rose says, pointing a needle towards the enemy. "Because this won't end in failure."

"Then what do you mean 'there's no best plan.'"

Rose turns her violet eyes on Dave. "Because we're going to die here."

He narrows his eyes, staring at her from behind his shades. Well, fuck. He bites down on his lip and looks up towards the enemy again. It's starting to free itself from its inter-dimensional prison. Its right arm wasn't free yet, and they would make sure it wouldn't be.

"Fine." Dave switches out Caledscratch for a sharp, unbroken blade. "Let's do this."

They kick off the roof top and move towards their enemy. Dave landed on the creature's arm, dragging his sword up its body as he ran up the extremity. The creature let out a scream of pain, one that was cut off when Rose's majyyk collides with the side of its face. Its head jerks to the left with the blast and the sorceress descends gracefully on top of a building. She looks up to see Dave jumping from the bad guy's forearm towards its face. She snaps up her needles and grabs him with her power. She yanks him down to where she was.

"Not a good move," she says.

Dave sees the creature snap its beak together as though trying grab where he would have been. Hm. He might have been a goner.

"Thanks," Dave throws back flatly when he lands before disappearing out of her sight.

He reappears on the thing's shoulder, lifting up his sword and stabbing into its shoulder. A thought passes through where he believes that they would actually make it out of this match alive. So far, the monster was just bleeding everywhere. Rose crosses her needles over her body before she extends her arms out quickly. The black sky is drawn to the needle points and starts to form around the creature like a blanket. Dave reappears beside her.

"Seems you're wrong," he says with a huff.

She doesn't look towards him. "We're not done yet."

"Figures. Here I was getting all excited."

"You need to slow it down, so it doesn't interfere with my majyyk. We're sending this beast back."

"Shouldn't be too hard." Dave's sword returns to his strife specibus, and he cracks his knuckles.

"You don't understand, Strider." She looks to Dave from the corner of her eyes. "This is from a new Session."

Dave furrows his brows. "But the game is—"

"Not defeated yet."

"Fuck." He looks up towards the sky. He closes his eyes and turns his head away, taking out his enhanced time tables. "Fuck..."

The gears move inward towards each other and the black, record like surfaces rotate outward. The black discs rub against the tip of Dave's fingers, but he's used to this pain. It's familiar and unwanted all at once. The large beast above starts to thrash about, trying to wriggle itself out of its holding even more. As Dave works, its movements slow down almost instantly. Rose pulls her needles closer to each other, her hands shaking with effort as though—

"Something is pulling it back," she states, fighting against the sudden force.

Dave looks up to the darkness she was trying to tame. "Pulling what back?"

He assumes it's the beast they're fighting until Rose's eyes widen slightly.

"It's the darkness," she says, her voice thinly veiling her disbelief.

The fact that she didn't know that at first means only one thing.

"A Void," Dave remarks through gritted teeth. "We've gotta get out of here."

"There's no use. It's coming."

The Darkness becomes alive and twitchy. It coils down the line of Rose's power and wraps around her body. From her, the Darkness extends over to Dave and tries to reel him in. Against his better judgment, he flashes out of the way, trying to escape its grasp before it grips him from behind. His jaw tensesm and he doesn't feel as though he could get out. Rose looks up to him, her face tight with effort.

But then she looks away.

Her hands tighten on her Thorns of Oglogoth, and Dave looks down to the people he had frozen. He releases them with an extension of his will; Rose's power flashes in the sky; and then...

They're gone.

The sky clears up, and people continue with their lives as usual. Some notice that there is oil spilled in the road in massive globs, but no one can say where it came from. Little do they know that just beside their reality, there is a battle raging. A wild, powerful, frightening battle that could very well bring a premature end to their world.

Of course, no one knows that.

When the sky breaks open again, Dave feels the Sun's rays on his face. He blinks slowly and stares up into the light from behind his shades. He turns his head to the left to avoid staring into the blinding rays and sees Rose lying on her back beside him. She scoffs, looking upward.

"It seems this is the end, Strider."

He blinks and looks over her, seeing her slashed open side. One of her needles is stabbed through her leg and the other... He lifts his gaze and stares at her, hard. His eyes adjust and see that it's not a trick of the mind. Her other needle is sticking straight down into her throat. He turns his head and looks to his right arm. It was there, but he couldn't feel it. There was numbness. His jacket had been ripped open messily, and he could see his arm clearly. It was black-and-purple with a few hints of red all over. He tried to curl his fingers, but it was useless. It was broken.

He takes in a deep breath and coughs up blood. A mess thing, that. He's hardly able to breathe but he turns his head away from Rose and spits whatever blood he can. He didn't need to guess what happened; he knew this feeling from a long time ago. His throat had been ripped open.

"I guess so," he says, but it comes out strained, garbled.

Rose's lips quirk up in a smile. That would never change. Even though the Sun was so bright and so warm, everything went so dark and so cold.


End file.
